Nigeria-Royal Niger Company

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The legitimate trade in commodities attracted a number
of
rough-hewn British merchants to the Niger River, as well
as some
men who had been formerly engaged in the slave trade but
who now
changed their line of wares. The large companies that
subsequently opened depots in the delta cities and in
Lagos were
as ruthlessly competitive as the delta towns themselves
and
frequently used force to compel potential suppliers to
agree to
contracts and to meet their demands. The most important of
these
trading companies, whose activities had far-reaching
consequences
for Nigeria, was the United Africa Company, founded by
George
Goldie in 1879. In 1886 Goldie's consortium was chartered
by the
British government as the Royal Niger Company and granted
broad
concessionary powers in "all the territory of the basin of
the
Niger." Needless to say, these concessions emanated from
Britain,
not from any authority in Nigeria.

The terms of the charter specified that trade should be
free
in the region--a principle systematically violated as the
company
strengthened its monopoly to forestall French and German
trade
interests. The company also was supposed to respect local
customs
"except so far as may be necessary in the interests of
humanity."
The qualifying clause was aimed at slavery and other
activities
categorized as "barbarous practices" by British
authorities, and
it foreshadowed the qualifications applied to
noninterference as
a guide to official policy when Britain assumed formal
colonial
responsibility in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the Royal Niger Company established its
headquarters far inland at Lokoja, from where it pretended
to
assume responsibility for the administration of areas
along the
Niger and Benue rivers where it maintained depots. The
company
interfered in the territory along the Niger and the Benue,
sometimes becoming embroiled in serious conflicts when its
British-led native constabulary intercepted slave raids or
attempted to protect trade routes. The company negotiated
treaties with Sokoto, Gwandu, and Nupe that were
interpreted as
guaranteeing exclusive access to trade in return for the
payment
of annual tribute. Officials of the Sokoto Caliphate
considered
these treaties quite differently; from their perspective,
the
British were granted only extraterritorial rights that did
not
prevent similar arrangements with the Germans and the
French and
certainly did not surrender sovereignty.

Under Goldie's direction, the Royal Niger Company was
instrumental in depriving France and Germany of access to
the
region. Consequently, he may well deserve the epithet
"father of
Nigeria," which imperialists accorded him. He definitely
laid the
basis for British claims.